Blog: Apple’s Lion, FCPx, And Adobe Production Suite: Fresh Installs

The Plan

With the release of Lion today, I also purchased FCPx and the Adobe Production Suite. I held off on purchasing FCPx until the release of Lion as I was planning on doing a fresh install of my OS. I wanted to do this so I would be able to boot off of my ‘working’ drive and continue with my daily workflow uninterrupted.

What started out (in theory) as a quick, low stress day filled in with editing during download and install time, turned into a full day endeavor.

The Low Down

I was hoping I would be able to boot off of my Snow Leopard disc in order to install Lion (an oversight made by apple in my opinion). When trying to boot off the disc, I was getting a kernel error which raised concern. However, when looking at the disc, I noticed there were a few scratches on it. I swapped the original drive to make sure my computer would still boot up. It did, so I headed to the local apple dealer in hopes of purchasing a new Snow Leopard disc. This is where the fun began.

Three weeks before the release of Lion, Apple requested the return of all Snow Leopard discs. Luckily, the tech said that he would be able to burn me a copy of Snow Leopard because I proved I had purchased it previously. However, when talking to the tech, he raised concern that the kernel error was more likely unrelated to the scratched disc and rather a problem with my Mac Pro. I decided to bring in my Mac Pro for him to test, and while he was at it, install Snow Leopard.

The Install

By the time I finally had a functioning drive with Show Leopard, I had visited the tech shop three times! So frustrating! In any case, everything worked out and I spent the rest of the day downloading and installing all the software. Download time of LION was approximately 3 hrs, FCPx was about 30 minutes, and the Adobe Production Suite was about 3 hrs. Install of LION took an hour and Adobe also took an hour.

Functionality

LION: So far I am absolutely loving Launchpad but wished I could nest Applications beyond the one level or organization. This is something you are unable to do with the IPHONE/IPAD but wish you were able to do this.

My major concern at this point is whether or not all of my apps will work with LION. I have slowly been installing my apps and have not ran into issues as of yet but will be updating this post if I do run into issues.

I have only started to play with LION so haven’t experienced all of it’s features yet but similar to the APP compatibility, I will be updating this post as I explore more.

One thing to note when it comes to APPS is that Apple has dropped support for all PowerPC based apps as well as Rosetta so many older APPS will not port over at all.

FCPx: For now, I will not be using FCPx on a daily bases but plan on editing one short a week with it to familiarize myself with it as I believe within a year that it will be a strong competitor to that of Avid and Premiere.

***UPDATE: I have spent about two hours sifting through FCPx attempting to cut my first music video with it but after much frustration, I ended up back with FCP7. What used to be the simplest tasks with FCP7 is now impossible with FCPx. I think I may need to set aside a few days to learn the new workflow as everything is so damn foreign…

ADOBE: So far, all apps seem to be functioning properly.

Although VERY basic, I have included step-by-step LION OSX instructions below.

HOW TO INSTALL LION with NEW HD:

1. Insert Snow Leopard Disc into optical drive2. Hold down option key and boot from DVD3. Install Snow Leopard4. Update OSX.5. Download LION: At the time of this post, LION was not available from the APP STORE and was only available through apple’s online store.6. Install LION.

Overall

It is evident that Apple is trying to phase out optical drives as it is a fail point for computers. They have decided to offer LION for purchase on thumb drives starting in August for $69.99 verses $29.99 in the APP Store. I am honestly okay with this as it may have saved me from my trips to the tech shop…

Overall, I am happy with LION. My opinions are fairly fresh however as I only have about an hour or run-time under LION. I have heard a lot of negative feedback on gestures but have not tried them yet as I installed it on my Mac Pro. I plan on purchasing the magic track-pad before installing on my Macbook Pro’s.